Why WhatToMine predictions are so wrong about ethereum mining?

Question

Being new to the mining games, I set up a 5 x RX 580 Rig. WhatToMine predicts that this setup make 151 Mh/s and $15.41 per day.

Very promising, isn't it?

Alas, the reality is not so rosy.

When I started to mine in nanopool.org using Claymore miner, I got 90 Mh/s and the estimate of revenue was just $1.7 per day, which definitely does not worth mining at all, so I‌ stopped after an hour or so.

If the estimate was %50 less, I‌ could understand, because my hash rate is %50 less than what WTM predicts.

But I'm wondering why there is such discrepancy in terms of revue estimates by WhatToMine? And which estimate is closer to reality?‌ WhatToMine or nanopool.org?

Answer 1

I have 5 cards running,

Rx 480 R9 290x x3 380x

I get roughly 100-120mhs and the $ value fluctuates. When I first stared mining when ETH < $10 I was getting roughly 1eth per day then as difficulty raised over the year its now every 3-4 days before I get 0.01 payout. Last payout was for $82 divided by 4 is about $20. For a while it was barely breaking even but I continued to mine and as the price increased it worked out alright.

I was about to go turn them off only the price shot up to $800 so I left them mining.

The Pools can only share what reward they get, if a pool is not winning enough blockcs then your contribution to that pool with only 5 GPUs is really small. Small pool reward + small mining contribution = small $ value.

I have used DwarfPool for over 1yr & 1/2. In addition to the reward from the pool they also take a fee.

My mining experience over the past year and a half has been positive. It has pulled me out of a few holes.